If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Mesa Kills Old Hardware Support: No More 3dfx Voodoo

08-27-2011, 09:50 AM

Phoronix: Mesa Kills Old Hardware Support: No More 3dfx Voodoo

The death sentence to legacy Mesa drivers was carried out over the night. All DRI1 drivers have been removed from the Mesa tree along with support for BeOS and other old code, in an effort to remove drivers that receive little maintenance and are just causing a greater burden in re-factoring core Mesa code for the modern drivers. This means though that the Linux desktop loses its support for hardware like VIA Unichrome and 3dfx Voodoo graphics cards...

Comment

Comment

This means though that the Linux desktop loses its support for hardware like VIA Unichrome and 3dfx Voodoo graphics cards.

Let's not get carried away. The linux desktop looses support FOR DOING 3D in such hardware, a thing that for many hasn't worked correctly in years, and that I doubt even current users of the hardware still use -- even Tux Racer is slow on this hardware.

The most important parts of the software stack for this hardware are the Xorg drivers which provide 2D acceleration and Xv overlays.

These I hope they don't remove because it makes a hell of a difference, especially on old hardware, between having 2d accel or just VESA.
Besides, the whole X stack is supposed to be killed by Wayland, so why not let it all die together.